Moon Rock Sound

Jon 'Clark' Henshaw

Chief Engineer

Creative, self-motivated audio engineer with 6+ years’ experience in live and studio settings. Deep interest in audio technology and its implementation. Thrives in collaborative environments, motivated to enact shared goals within a team. Experience in education fosters communication between people without specialized audio knowledge. Committed to embracing moments that allow growth by quickly learning new skills, tactics, and software to lead clients towards realizing their unique artistic visions.

Oscar Alvarado

Mastering Specialist

I discovered my love of music when I began playing guitar over 15 years ago. Twiddling with all those knobs, it didn’t take long for me to figure out that mix engineering would be a career that could satisfy both my technical and creative sides. I graduated from Berklee College of Music in 2012 with a degree in Audio Engineering and Guitar. Since graduating, I’ve had the pleasure to work with talented musicians from many diverse parts of the world, both signed and independent, with a focus on delivering mastering services. I recently graduated from Full Sail with a degree in Software Development, with the goal of developing audio plugins with the Moon Rock Sound team.

Moon Rock Sound

Email your inquiry to jon@moonrocksound.com—or use the contact form at the bottom of the page to start a conversation about your project. Samples and testimonials below:

Testimonials

I’ve been lucky enough in my life to work with many, many audio professionals, Grammy-Award-winning engineers, and talented producers from coast to coast—and Jon’s passion, professionalism, and expertise set him apart. He’s the real deal. We recently undertook a three-day recording session, and he knew exactly how to tap into my vision, coaxing out my best musical ideas and performances, helping me take bold risks that paid off tenfold, creatively. Jon is personable, attentive, and works fast, and his musical and technical intuitions made our sessions a blast. I wholeheartedly recommend Moon Rock Sound. Believe.

When working with a producer, I value two qualities above all others. I want a producer who will engage with me creatively, providing new insight into songs I have written. Secondly, I want to be able to speak in abstracts about moods, dynamics, and atmosphere and know that my producer will be able to find the exact sound or effect that captures what I am describing. Jon is not only able to meet these expectations, but surpasses them in a way that changes my understanding of past recording experiences. After having worked with him, it would be difficult to work with anyone else.

Samples

Sound Editing and Mixing

12

Pull Me Asleep

David Pollack

This is a BEFORE AND AFTER SAMPLE—listen all the way through to see how this song was transformed with Moon Rock Sound’s services!

This is a song I worked on with David Pollack this past summer. David is a self-proclaimed “Dad-Rock” artist, and wanted to push his boundaries with a new record to be released in 2018. This song is one of the tunes that made the biggest leap from inception to execution.

David sent me a rough demo recording he’d done on his phone (Part 1), and said to me “I want to give it some atmosphere.” My mind immediately went to a Death Cab/Postal Service vibe, so I decided that big, washy reverb and tons of synth layers was the way to go. I gave myself the challenge of using a completely different synth for each layer and it gave the song an incredibly rich sonic texture—it was also a lot of fun!

You can hear how the parts interplay musically and sonically, and how the bigness of the spatial effects translates to a bigness in the emotional response. All this commotion risked becoming a cacophony, but in the full version we architected the build to start small and explode—giving the listener time to adjust to all that is going on. In the end, Pull Me Asleep wound up being one of my favorite songs I’ve ever been involved with. —Jon

12

I Will

Precariat

This is a BEFORE AND AFTER SAMPLE—listen all the way through to see how this song was transformed with Moon Rock Sound’s services!

I worked on an EP with Precariat in 2016, and this song had the most drastic transformation from demo to completed project. The first part is the rough demo Edan tracked into his laptop mic with his own instrumentation. Part 2 is after we worked on it together.

I helped him figure out how to make the bass line drive the chords he used, got the drums to accentuate the disparate rhythms instead of drive them apart, and keyed in some lush, inventive sound design to achieve the sliding, frost-like feel he wanted to communicate. We replaced the dull room reverb with some spaced-out twinkles and huge space verb, and of course, we re-recorded those rough vocals he started with.
—Jon

12

You Are the Ocean

Allister Quilon

This is a BEFORE AND AFTER SAMPLE—listen all the way through to see how this song was transformed with Moon Rock Sound’s services!

This is a song by Allister Quilon called You Are the Ocean. I mixed and Executive Produced his solo album, Sketches of Youth, which came out at the end of 2015. Part 1 of this sample is the raw, unmixed version, from his original composition he did on his own time. This is how I received the track when he first sent it to me. Part 2 is the final version, after mixing and mastering with Moon Rock Sound.

You can hear how much clearer, fuller, and atmospheric the final mix is. It has a much stronger forward motion, it’s punchier, and it’s more emotional. Cleaning up the EQ on the three bass instruments helped it stop being so soggy, and some more interesting reverb and delay effects gave it a great richness. We also rerecorded the vocals to get some better takes, and in the end, the track of course wound up being a good deal louder.
—Jon

123

I Can't Wait

Measured Beings

This is a BEFORE AND AFTER SAMPLE—listen all the way through to see how this song was transformed with Moon Rock Sound’s services!

This is a song from a project I’ve been working on with a good friend of mine, Aaron Fienberg, that we’ve been calling Measured Beings. This is a segment of a song we wrote together called “I Can’t Wait.” Part 1 plays a snippet of the song as we originally recorded it, and Part 2 repeats the same snippet after I completed the mixing work. Part 3 is the final mastered version from Oscar.

Generous use of delay and distortion, along with proper applications of EQ, compression, and panning, enabled me to give the track a wider feel, a fuller frequency spectrum, and an enormous sense of space. It is also considerably more exciting, it pulsates, and it’s louder.

Oscar’s mastering job was subtle but incredible. The overall loudness is only increased a little bit—but by using EQ and multiband gating, he was able to isolate the fundamentals of the drums so they hit you right in the face. Some more EQ and multiband spatial effects achieved a poignancy in the vocal with a richer sonic landscape surrounding it. And he gave it the right amount of overall compression for that finalized polish which was missing from the original mix.
—Jon

12

O Fortuna

Andover Choral Society

This is a BEFORE AND AFTER SAMPLE—listen all the way through to see how this song was transformed with Moon Rock Sound’s services!

I almost feel like I’m cheating here, considering how quiet the original recording was vs how loud I managed to get it in the end, but here’s a before and after of a mix I did of the Andover Choral Society’s recent performance of ‘O Fortuna’ from Carl Orff’s Carmina Burana. While it is a classical piece, it is one that has permeated pop culture, and you’ve likely heard it before.

Part 1 is the unmixed recording, as I received it from the conductor, Michael Driscoll. It is quiet, dull, lifeless…not adjectives you want associated with a performance of O Fortuna. Part 2 is the final mixed and mastered version. As mentioned above, it is considerably louder—but it is also clearer, shimmering, intense, heart-pumping, and enormous.
—Jon

12

My Bondage, My Freedom

TaeKwonMo

This is a BEFORE AND AFTER SAMPLE—listen all the way through to see how this song was transformed with Moon Rock Sound’s services!

I had the pleasure of mixing and mastering the entirety of TaeKwonMo’s debut EP, The Mind of a Revolutionary. This sample uses a segment from the track “My Bondage, My Freedom” to show how I was able to transform Part 1, the raw composition as got it from Mo, into Part 2, the final mixed and mastered version that he released.

You can hear how the whole mix changed to benefit the song. I got it to be much more energetic and cohesive. I brought the aggression to the forefront, giving it this driving momentum that really sucks you in. Distortion in the vocals and drums give it that aggressive feel, and some more appropriate drum samples helped to create this big, noisy sound.
—Oscar

Audio Mastering

12

Robot Devil

Felix Martin

This is a BEFORE AND AFTER SAMPLE—listen all the way through to see how this song was transformed with Moon Rock Sound’s services!

This sample is from a track I mastered for Felix Martin. Felix is a guitar phenomenon making a name for himself by playing progressive jazz metal on custom-built 14-string guitars of his own design. Part 1 is the final mix, as it was sent to me. Part 2 is the final mastered version.

Aside from getting it to be louder, I made the track livelier and punchier. By massaging the high frequencies, I was able to bring the cymbals forward, accentuated the guitar sound, and added some smack to the kick. Additional work with EQ and compression on the lower half of the frequency spectrum resulted in a cleaner track with a more controlled punch. You can also feel how much more open and energetic the softer section of the song became.
—Oscar

12

Facts

Marc Vincent

This is a BEFORE AND AFTER SAMPLE—listen all the way through to see how this song was transformed with Moon Rock Sound’s services!

This is a track by a Massachusetts rapper named Marc Vincent. Part 1 of this sample is the unmastered version, and Part 2 is the fully mastered version.

Heavy use of mid-side EQ helped tremendously in cleaning up the stereo image of this track, giving the low end the power and laser-focus it needed while bringing out the spookiness of the piano. Multiband compression got the mud cleaned up, removed some gnarly vocal resonances, and smoothed out the highs. While some full-track arena reverb gives it that enormous feel.
—Jon

Music Production

Composition Sampler

Here’s a 2:00 sampler containing 12 pieces I’ve composed in various styles and moods for use in video games, commercial, podcasts, and short film.
—Jon

You Made Me a Fool (Tegan and Sara Remix)

Moon Rock Sound

This is a remix I did of Tegan and Sarah’s I Was a Fool. The original is a sparkly pop ballad, while this version is dark, chill, epic, and synth-driven. I re-organized the form of the song and well as recomposing the entire instrumental and drum track to give it a killer vibe with eerie interludes.
—Jon